Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün mefâîlün (hezec). The edition names no metre for this text from an anthology; hezec is our identification.

Göñül murgına ser-tâ-ser cihân bâğın tolandurdum
Ben anı âkıbet bir serv-i bâlâya dolandurdum
Kulağına koyup evsâf-ı âb-ı ‘ârız-ı yâri
Meriç-âsâ dil-i pür-cûşı taşırdum bulandurdum
Uyurmış bilmedüm bülbül-misâl itdüm hezâr efgân
Meded ol çeşmi nergis gonca-i nâzı uyandurdum
Bi-hamdillâh şeb-i gamda berî oldum belâsından
Dil-i pervâne-i pür-sûzı şem‘üm saña yandurdum
Gözüm açup göricek ağladum bî-ihtiyâr anı
Yine cûy-i sirişküm ‘Avnîyâ benden boşandurdum

In English

1. I led the bird of my heart all over the garden of the world; in the end I bound it (wound it) to a tall cypress.

2. Telling in its ear the qualities of the water of the beloved's cheek, I made the surging heart overflow and grow turbid like the Meriç.

3. I did not know he was asleep; I cried out a thousand times like a nightingale. Alas, I woke that narcissus-eyed bud of coquetry.

4. Thank God, on the night of grief I was freed from its affliction; O my candle, I burned the blazing moth of my heart in you.

5. Opening my eyes and seeing him, I wept despite myself; O Avnî, once more I let the stream of my tears pour out of me.

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

It was not the divan's main manuscript in the Millet Library that preserved this ghazal but a poetry anthology. As Doğan's footnote relates, M. Ali Tanyeri found it on folio 407b of the Pervâne Bey Mecmuası, kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum Library under Bağdat Köşkü no. 406, and published it in issue 65 of the journal Pınar, dated May 1977. The Pervâne Bey Mecmuası is one of the great anthologies of response poems (nazire) of the sixteenth century; several of Mehmed II's poems are preserved in this collection.

The redif is the suffix "-durdum", which gives the ghazal a causative mood: the lover made his heart wander, made it overflow, woke the beloved, made the moth burn. The verbs "tolan-, dolan-, bulan-, uyan-, yan-, boşan-" carry the rhyme in "-an". "Tolandurdum" and "dolandurdum" in the opening couplet are two spellings of the same verb and their meanings part: the first is to lead about, the second to wind around like ivy, to bind. The metre is hezec, with four "mefâîlün" to the line.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet, as Doğan explains, alludes to the relation of the turtle-dove and the cypress. The turtle-dove, called "fâhte" in divan poetry, is known for its sweet song and hides among the dense branches of the cypress to protect itself from birds of prey. The lover's heart-bird too has roamed the whole garden of the world, has given its heart to no flower, and in the end has bound itself to the beloved's cypress stature and made its nest there. Doğan adds that in Sufism the stature, likened to the letter elif and to the cypress, is the symbol of unity, and that the couplet tells of a turning from passing beauties to absolute beauty.

The heart becomes a surging river in the second couplet; when the lover tells in its ear of the beloved's cheek, bright as water, the river overflows and grows turbid like the Meriç. The Meriç (Maritsa) is the river that flows past Edirne, where Mehmed II was born; it is the third real place name mentioned in the divan after Istanbul and Galata. The turbidity of the overflowing river expresses the heart losing its calm in its excitement.

The third couplet is a small scene of regret: the beloved is asleep, and the lover, unaware of it, has cried out like a nightingale and woken the narcissus-eyed beauty. The comparison of the narcissus with a languid eye is also seen in the divan's seventeenth and forty-second ghazals. The fourth couplet gives a new turn to the conceit of candle and moth. The heart, with its fickleness and its troubles, has always brought trouble on the lover's head; at last the lover has burned this moth in the beloved's candle and been freed of the heart's affliction. The words "bi-hamdillâh" (thank God) underline this attitude, which greets a loss like a deliverance. A sudden sight comes in the last couplet: opening his eyes, the lover sees the beloved (according to Doğan, his image) before him and weeps despite himself. Doğan says there is also an allusion to the eye watering when it looks at strong light, and compares the same idea with the couplet "Hurşîde baksa gözleri halkun dola gelür" (when people look at the sun their eyes fill) in Bâkî's Elegy for Süleyman the Magnificent.

Bibliography

  • Fâtih Sultan Mehmed (Avnî), Fâtih Dîvânı ve Şerhi / Dīwān of Sultan Mehmed II with Commentary, ed. Muhammet Nur Doğan, English trans. Michael D. Sheridan, 3rd ed., Istanbul: Türkiye Yazma Eserler Kurumu Başkanlığı, 2023, poem 50, pp. 376-379 (not in the Millet manuscript; Topkapı Palace Museum Library, Bağdat 406, Pervâne Bey Mecmuası, fol. 407b). https://ekitap.yek.gov.tr/urun/fatih-divani-ve-serhi--ucuncu-baski-_794.aspx

Online sources